Kristin Sellers, PhD
Assistant Professor
Neurological Surgery
School of Medicine

Dr. Sellers is an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery. She studies intracranial electrical stimulation for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders including major depressive disorder and chronic pain. She works to translate learnings from early stage clinical trials of closed-loop neuromodulation for the development of neurotechnologies and supporting infrastructure.

Education & Training

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• Postdoctoral Scholar Neurological Surgery University of California 2020
• Ph.D. Neurobiology University of North Carolina 2016
• Certificate Translational Medicine University of North Carolina 2016
• BS Human Development Cornell University 2011

Publications (38)

Top publication keywords:
WakefulnessTranscranial Direct Current StimulationVisual CortexFerretsAfferent PathwaysNerve NetElectrocorticographyPrefrontal CortexVisual PerceptionDeep Brain StimulationAnesthetics, InhalationThinkingIsofluraneBrain-Computer InterfacesWechsler Scales

• Experience and safety of intraoperative Neuropixels: a case series of 56 patients.
  Journal of neurosurgery 2025 Chung JE, Xu D, Greicius QR, Poddar T, Leonard MK, Sellers KK, Andrews JP, Welkenhuysen M, Dutta B, Cadwell CR, Chang EF
• Towards individualized deep brain stimulation: A stereoencephalography-based workflow for unbiased neurostimulation target identification.
  bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2025 Saal J, Kadlec K, Allawala AB, Johnston L, Leriche RB, Vatsyayan R, Han Y, Kist A, Di Ianni T, Dawes HE, Chang EF, Lee AM, Krystal AD, Moussawi K, Shirvalkar P, Sellers KK
• Bladder control side-effects of deep brain stimulation for major depressive disorder related to recruitment of distinct subcomponents of the anterior limb of the internal capsule.
  Brain stimulation 2025 Sellers KK, Sugrue LP, Tremblay-McGaw AG, Becker NC, Nedelec P, Hamlat EJ, Chang EF, Krystal AD
• Best practices for clinical trials of deep brain stimulation for neuropsychiatric indications.
  Frontiers in human neuroscience 2025 Tremblay-McGaw AG, Hamlat EJ, Becker NC, Astudillo Maya DA, Krystal AD, Sellers KK
• Invasive Brain Mapping Identifies Personalized Therapeutic Neuromodulation Targets for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
  medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences 2025 Lee AM, Kist A, Alvarez J, Sellers KK, Khambhati AN, Sugrue LP, Reid LB, Kadlec K, Fan JM, Allawala AB, Racine CA, Norbu T, Astudillo D, Tremblay-McGaw AG, Becker N, Alhourani A, Starr PA, Chang EF, …

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• DREDge: robust motion correction for high-density extracellular recordings across species.
  Nature methods 2025 Windolf C, Yu H, Paulk AC, Meszéna D, Muñoz W, Boussard J, Hardstone R, Caprara I, Jamali M, Kfir Y, Xu D, Chung JE, Sellers KK, Ye Z, Shaker J, Lebedeva A, Raghavan RT, Trautmann E, Melin M, Couto J,…
• Large-scale single-neuron speech sound encoding across the depth of human cortex.
  Nature 2023 Leonard MK, Gwilliams L, Sellers KK, Chung JE, Xu D, Mischler G, Mesgarani N, Welkenhuysen M, Dutta B, Chang EF
• DREDge: robust motion correction for high-density extracellular recordings across species.
  bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2023 Windolf C, Yu H, Paulk AC, Meszéna D, Muñoz W, Boussard J, Hardstone R, Caprara I, Jamali M, Kfir Y, Xu D, Chung JE, Sellers KK, Ye Z, Shaker J, Lebedeva A, Raghavan M, Trautmann E, Melin M, Couto J, …
• Closed-Loop Neurostimulation for Biomarker-Driven, Personalized Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder.
  Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE 2023 Sellers KK, Khambhati AN, Stapper N, Fan JM, Rao VR, Scangos KW, Chang EF, Krystal AD
• Intracranial electrical stimulation of corticolimbic sites modulates arousal in humans.
  Brain stimulation 2023 Fan JM, Lee AM, Sellers KK, Woodworth K, Makhoul GS, Liu TX, Henderson C, Astudillo Maya DA, Martinez R, Zamanian H, Speidel BA, Khambhati AN, Rao VR, Sugrue LP, Scangos KW, Chang EF, Krystal AD
• Closed-loop neurostimulation for the treatment of psychiatric disorders.
  Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2023 Sellers KK, Cohen JL, Khambhati AN, Fan JM, Lee AM, Chang EF, Krystal AD
• Epileptiform discharges triggered with direct electrical stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: Factors that modulate risk and treatment considerations.
  Brain stimulation 2023 Fan JM, Khambhati AN, Sellers KK, Stapper N, Maya DA, Kunwar E, Henderson C, Sugrue LP, Scangos KW, Chang EF, Rao VR, Krystal AD
• Changes in intracranial neurophysiology associated with acute COVID-19 infection.
  Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology 2023 Sellers KK, Stapper N, Astudillo Maya DA, Henderson C, Khambhati AN, Fan JM, Rao VR, Scangos KW, Chang EF, Krystal AD
• High-density single-unit human cortical recordings using the Neuropixels probe.
  Neuron 2022 Chung JE, Sellers KK, Leonard MK, Gwilliams L, Xu D, Dougherty ME, Kharazia V, Metzger SL, Welkenhuysen M, Dutta B, Chang EF
• Practical Closed-Loop Strategies for Deep Brain Stimulation: Lessons From Chronic Pain.
  Frontiers in neuroscience 2021 Prosky J, Cagle J, Sellers KK, Gilron R, de Hemptinne C, Schmitgen A, Starr PA, Chang EF, Shirvalkar P
• Closed-loop neuromodulation in an individual with treatment-resistant depression.
  Nature medicine 2021 Scangos KW, Khambhati AN, Daly PM, Makhoul GS, Sugrue LP, Zamanian H, Liu TX, Rao VR, Sellers KK, Dawes HE, Starr PA, Krystal AD, Chang EF
• Thin-film microfabrication and intraoperative testing ofµECoG and iEEG depth arrays for sense and stimulation.
  Journal of neural engineering 2021 Sellers KK, Chung JE, Zhou J, Triplett MG, Dawes HE, Haque R, Chang EF
• Analysis-rcs-data: Open-Source Toolbox for the Ingestion, Time-Alignment, and Visualization of Sense and Stimulation Data From the Medtronic Summit RC+S System.
  Frontiers in human neuroscience 2021 Sellers KK, Gilron R, Anso J, Louie KH, Shirvalkar PR, Chang EF, Little SJ, Starr PA
• Bidirectional propagation of low frequency oscillations over the human hippocampal surface.
  Nature communications 2021 Kleen JK, Chung JE, Sellers KK, Zhou J, Triplett M, Lee K, Tooker A, Haque R, Chang EF
• Rapid deployment of SARS-CoV-2 testing: The CLIAHUB.
  PLoS pathogens 2020 Crawford ED, Acosta I, Ahyong V, Anderson EC, Arevalo S, Asarnow D, Axelrod S, Ayscue P, Azimi CS, Azumaya CM, Bachl S, Bachmutsky I, Bhaduri A, Brown JB, Batson J, Behnert A, Boileau RM, Bollam SR, …
• A Deep Brain Stimulation Trial Period for Treating Chronic Pain.
  Journal of clinical medicine 2020 Shirvalkar P, Sellers KK, Schmitgen A, Prosky J, Joseph I, Starr PA, Chang EF
• Pilot Study of An Intracranial Electroencephalography Biomarker of Depressive Symptoms in Epilepsy.
  The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences 2019 Scangos KW, Ahmad HS, Shafi A, Sellers KK, Dawes HE, Krystal A, Chang EF
• Direct Electrical Stimulation of Lateral Orbitofrontal Cortex Acutely Improves Mood in Individuals with Symptoms of Depression.
  Current biology : CB 2018 Rao VR, Sellers KK, Wallace DL, Lee MB, Bijanzadeh M, Sani OG, Yang Y, Shanechi MM, Dawes HE, Chang EF
• Theta Oscillations Organize Spiking Activity in Higher-Order Visual Thalamus during Sustained Attention.
  eNeuro 2018 Yu C, Li Y, Stitt IM, Zhou ZC, Sellers KK, Frohlich F
• Early Development of Network Oscillations in the Ferret Visual Cortex.
  Scientific reports 2017 Li Y, Yu C, Zhou ZC, Stitt I, Sellers KK, Gilmore JH, Frohlich F
• Breakdown of local information processing may underlie isoflurane anesthesia effects.
  PLoS computational biology 2017 Wollstadt P, Sellers KK, Rudelt L, Priesemann V, Hutt A, Fröhlich F, Wibral M
• Oscillatory Dynamics in the Frontoparietal Attention Network during Sustained Attention in the Ferret.
  Cell reports 2016 Sellers KK, Yu C, Zhou ZC, Stitt I, Li Y, Radtke-Schuller S, Alagapan S, Fröhlich F
• Resting state network topology of the ferret brain.
  NeuroImage 2016 Zhou ZC, Salzwedel AP, Radtke-Schuller S, Li Y, Sellers KK, Gilmore JH, Shih YY, Fröhlich F, Gao W
• Dorso-Lateral Frontal Cortex of the Ferret Encodes Perceptual Difficulty during Visual Discrimination.
  Scientific reports 2016 Zhou ZC, Yu C, Sellers KK, Fröhlich F
• Statistical Frequency-Dependent Analysis of Trial-to-Trial Variability in Single Time Series by Recurrence Plots.
  Frontiers in systems neuroscience 2016 Tošic T, Sellers KK, Fröhlich F, Fedotenkova M, Beim Graben P, Hutt A
• Structural and functional connectivity between the lateral posterior-pulvinar complex and primary visual cortex in the ferret.
  The European journal of neuroscience 2016 Yu C, Sellers KK, Radtke-Schuller S, Lu J, Xing L, Ghukasyan V, Li Y, Shih YY, Murrow R, Fröhlich F
• Anesthesia-related changes in information transfer may be caused by reduction in local information generation.
  Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual International Conference 2015 Wollstadt P, Sellers KK, Hutt A, Frohlich F, Wibral M
• Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of frontal cortex decreases performance on the WAIS-IV intelligence test.
  Behavioural brain research 2015 Sellers KK, Mellin JM, Lustenberger CM, Boyle MR, Lee WH, Peterchev AV, Fröhlich F
• Awake vs. anesthetized: layer-specific sensory processing in visual cortex and functional connectivity between cortical areas.
  Journal of neurophysiology 2015 Sellers KK, Bennett DV, Hutt A, Williams JH, Fröhlich F
• Targeting the neurophysiology of cognitive systems with transcranial alternating current stimulation.
  Expert review of neurotherapeutics 2014 Fröhlich F, Sellers KK, Cordle AL
• Frequency-band signatures of visual responses to naturalistic input in ferret primary visual cortex during free viewing.
  Brain research 2014 Sellers KK, Bennett DV, Fröhlich F
• Anesthesia differentially modulates spontaneous network dynamics by cortical area and layer.
  Journal of neurophysiology 2013 Sellers KK, Bennett DV, Hutt A, Fröhlich F
• Transcranial alternating current stimulation modulates large-scale cortical network activity by network resonance.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2013 Ali MM, Sellers KK, Fröhlich F